Recently, there have been actively undertaken research and development of high definition printing in the field of printing arts. Ordinary printed-pictures are comprised of halftone dots having a line-number of 175 lines per inch, which are liable to produce a moire or Roset pattern. To avoid these problems and make a printed image close to a photographic image, there have increased high definition prints having a high screen frequency. (Hereinafter, unless otherwise noted, the high definition printing material indicates one comprised of a screen frequency of 400 lines/inch or more.)
In printing a conventional roomlight-handling photographic material in contact with a film which has been printed by a scanner, for example, at 600 lines/inch, the dot percentage is excessively increased before reaching a required density because contrast thereof is liable to be varied. Accordingly, in printing further on a presensitized plate, if an original dot density is low, no small dot is produced so that an unnatural image was produced. Liability to contrast variation becomes larger with an increase of the line number because variation of dot percentage versus exposure amount becomes larger due to increased total circular length of dots.
In the high definition printing, a small dot area is smaller and a minimum density portion of a large dot becomes smaller, as compared to the case of printing at 175 lines/inch. Accordingly, in a low contrast photographic material, a density of the small dot is lowered and a large dot becomes filled-in so that an exposure latitude becomes narrow. Therefore, in a contact printing process of high definition screening printing, there has been desired a roomlight handling material having a high contrast and little liability to variation thereof.
Processing of a silver halide photographic material is carried out conventionally by use of a automatic processor with replenishing of processing solutions from the view-points of stability, rapidness, easiness and handling. In a developer for processing a black and white photographic material, dihydroxybenzenes have been employed as a developing agent. In practice, the dihydroxybenzenes have been advantageously used for development of most black and white photographic material from the view points of photographic activity, stability, availability, handling and cost. However, the dihydroxybenzenes are undesirable for human body as they are allergic.
Therefore, there has been strongly desired development of a developer free from the dihydroxybenzenes. U.S. Pat. No. 5,236,816, for example, discloses a developer containing ascorbic acid in place of the dihydroxybenzene.
Photographic processing waste liquor is not allowed to be released to a public sewer since it contains an undesirable component; therefore, the waste liquor is collected and subjected to decomposition treatment by a troublesome and expensive combustion technique. In view thereof, there has been desired reduction of photographic processing waste liquor. As a means for solving these problems, there was proposed reduction of a replenishing amount in processing with a processor. However, the reduction of the replenishing amount tends to accumulate unnecessary reaction products resulted from processing in a processing bath of the processor. Particularly, a silver salt dissolved out from a photographic material precipitates on the surface of the photographic material to form metalic silver, which causes stain due to so-called silver sludge.
There has been desired a lower replenishing rate from the view points of low cost and low waste liquor. The processing amount per day of roomlight films is much larger than that of photographic films for camera and scanner so that super-rapid processing has been demanded. However, processing at a low replenishing rate or super-rapid processing has led to deterioration in processing stability.